Trump Media & Technology Group, the company behind the president’s Truth Social app, is calling on the SEC on Thursday to immediately investigate a British hedge fund for taking a $105 million short position against it.
The company, in a memo sent to the SEC, said the bet on Trump Media’s shares dropping is “suspicious” and a “potential manipulation” of its stock price. Trump Media is questioning why the hedge fund, Qube Research & Technologies, recently disclosed its roughly six million-share short position in Trump Media only in Germany; Trump Media trades on the Nasdaq exchange in the U.S. under the symbol DJT.
“Neither Nasdaq, NYSE Texas, nor any other source has been able to confirm when the trades disclosed by Qube were conducted or if they were conducted at all,” the memo said.
Trump Media added: “The above factors, especially when combined with the history of suspicious trading surrounding DJT stock — including DJT appearing on Nasdaq’s Regulation SHO Threshold Security List continuously for more than two months in 2024 — could be indications of the illegal naked short selling of DJT shares.”
Illegal naked short selling happens when someone or a firm sells shares of a stock without having borrowed the shares first — which can artificially depress the company’s share price and mislead the market.
Reuters reported Qube’s $105 million short position against DJT on Monday, based on a filing made in Germany’s Gazette Bundesanzeiger and first noticed by research firm Breakout Point. Qube’s position is about 2.53% of the total shares available for trading; President Trump’s trust has a 53% stake in the company, which is valued at $4.49 billion as of Thursday.
“American equities exchanges should be operated with full transparency and maximum efficiency, not as an opaque free-for-all reminiscent of a third-world casino,” Trump Media added in its memo to the SEC.
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